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Goodnight Grandpa.

Some of you out there might know that me and m'Grandpa were like two peas hanging out in a pod. Sadly he passed away yesterday morning.

A shared love of PBS and maple syrup and geraniums and coffee with light cream and cinnamon donuts and long aimless drives to "see stuff" and many annual November Turkey Shootweekends definitely made us friends as well as family. I really enjoyed hanging out with him. I especially loved to call him late at night - in my family everyone goes to bed by 9pm (I know! Bunch of geriatrics!) but Grandpa would still be up at 10pm to chat about everything and nothing.

Grandpa loved to garden, he made jam, baked banana bread, let me take him to his first McDonalds drive through, he was unfailingly patient and took all my abuse with good humor. I mean, the Evil Twin and I used to refer to him as "The Turtle" and not always behind his back. And sometimes when he was dawdling especially slowly we'd look at each other and say "ok, who flipped The Turtle on his back?"

I do not regret the times I rolled my eyes at him when he would stand at the top of the escalator, unaware of the people piling up behind him, or the times I was impatient with him because he needed 6+ hours to find the exact, most perfect, just right pair of corduroys that evidently existed in his own imagination. I don't regret being petty with him because it was part of our friendship, I was myself around him and he thought I was okay anyway.

For one birthday we calculated that his lifetime martini consumption number somewhere near 10,135 - which would explain why he looked so great and lived so long. Pickling is a terrific form of preservation if you ask me.

(Grandpapa - Turkey Shoot 2008)

Oh and he was pretty sure a jar of currant jelly he made in Maine circa 1989 was still good to eat in 2005, so aside from a big oval head, I am pretty sure I also inherited my intestinal fortitude from him.

He will be missed terribly but I am grateful to have had the opportunity to also have been friends.

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My favorite Turtle behavior was the inability to walk and talk at the same time! Literally, if someone (perish the thought) said hello to him in the lobby he would STOP, TURN and TALK. And it would inevitably make us ANOTHER 45 minutes late to lunch. Awesome. I LOVE THAT MAN!!

So I fell off the blog writing horse, and then the horse ran away and left me to wander in the writers desert. It's hard to write all the time when you do it because you feel like it because sometimes you just don't feel it, y'know?

But then I was invited to join the Boston chapter of Les Dames d'Escoffier and after the annual meeting last night at Forge Baking Company, I remembered that I do actually like writing randomly about food and things related to eating, drinking, and basically being merry.